Long sword VS Katana

I'm easy, Jeff.  You can go from Tours to Agincourt and I will stand by my statement.  You can throw in extraneous fighters like the Northmen, Scotts, etc if you like.

He would look like a pin cusion., but depending on the period, he would still keep coming All depends on the period of the bow, the type of arrow, but even so. Once the archers were able to penetrate the armors, it didn't matter, just as with the proliferation of the musket and early guns. We mine as well be argueing about M-16's vs AK-47's then. LS (a rather vague term, as it covers a huge variety of euro swords) vs Katana, which somehow morphed into Knight vs Samurai (guilty in helping that happen heh).

The bow of the Samurai was always the equal or better of the English longbow in penetrating power.

Mitch - do you and some friends want me to run a naval scenario?  If so, pick a period and PM me how many.  Will arrange a date

japanese arrow would not penetrate european armor because of the design of the arrow heads used in japan. they were designed to be like knives to cut the cord used to tie the samurai armor together. not pierce like late middle ages early rennesaice european arrows were

Archery is not my forte, bows being hte weapon of the coward  , but a little research has revealed that the draw weight of the historical English longbow, such as the ones used in Agincourt, was between 100-185 pounds, while the Japanese daikyu, the samurai warbow, was between 35-90 pounds.

Could an archer elaborate on this, what exactly would that mean comparatively?

T

Draw weight is the basically how "heavy" the pull of the bow is at maximum draw when shooting (Usually 28", but could be more or less depending on the size of the bow and the archer).  A higher weight means the archer puts more effort into pulling the bow, which translates into more effort when it is released being transferred to the arrow.

As a rough comparison - the bows at KR are usually around 25 lbs, as are most of the bows used at camp archery ranges.  I should note that boffer arrows are significantly heavier, and less aerodynamic, than target or weapon arrows, and don't fly nearly as fast or far.  Upping from 25 to 30 is noticeable enough that said bow is unsafe for use at KR - that should give you a rough idea on what happens when you get to the higher ranges.

If the English Longbows were 100#, I'd be impressed that someone can pull and fire that all day.  185#, sounds like the Ulysses bow that you need 18/00 Strength to even string.